CES: Gadget Fiesta of e-ink, Android Devices, Eyeglasses, Gun Safes

By Tiernan Ray

Journalists at the Consumer Electronics Show, going on this week in Las Vegas, have some special privileges. Not only do they get to the front of some lines, but they get to preview some gadgets in special closed-door events.

On top of the thousands of square feet or exhibits at the Las Vegas convention center, there are three separate such sneak peeks: the first is CES Unveiled on Sunday night, which I talked about briefly in a previous post. The second is Digital Experience on Monday night. And the third is ShowStoppers on Tuesday evening.

In this post I'll mention just a few of the projects and products I came across in the latter two shows.

Some products featured very simple innovations that relied on style as much as tech.

Seven-year old GunnarOptiks of Carlsbad, California, offers “advanced computer eyewear,” but they are not the sort of hi-tech wearable technology one thinks of. The lenses reduce the eye strain that comes from staring at a computer monitor. The booth featured the company's new line of colorful, hipsteresque glasses, costing $49 a piece.

The CES this year featured a number of mobile products from the Chinese up-and-comers, including the more prominent names, such as ZTE and Huawei, but also smaller outfits such as Meizu and E-Fun. Meizu, best known for the last decade as a maker of MP3 players, was showing off an Android-based handset that puts a very simple user interface on top of Google's (GOOG) Android operating system.

Meizu's improved Android UI.

E-Fun was showing a 7-inch tablet computer that may retail at Wal-Mart Stores for $99, as well as some brightly colored smartwatches.

Some vendors returned with existing products that were updated with new versions or new features or new add-ons.

E-Fun $99 Android tablet.

Izzi Gadgets of Huntington Beach, California, had some very snazzy metal iPhone cases, called the “Orbit Pro,” that contain three different kinds of lenses for the rear camera, including a 2x optical zoom lense. It costs $239. A plastic model has just been introduced for $99.

Karma was showing the $99 MIFI wireless hotspot that it introduced a little over a year ago. It has updated the service with the ability to buy packages of one-gigabyte bandwidth in blocks of ten, for $9.99 each, a discount from the $14.99 it usually charges for each gig. The company notes that the bandwidth never expires, so when you buy a block of bandwidth, you can hang onto it indefinitely for your next business trip.

Karma MIFI hotspot.

Security software and services of various kinds were on display.

Remo Software of Bangalore, India, was showing off a program called, simply, “More,” which is a veritable Swiss Army knife of security functions. It can clean all the Web browser functions off of one's smartphone or tablet, and also clean up registry and other settings from a PC or similar data from a Macintosh. The program is free for now. Remo plans to add more functions in future for which it can charge money, such as parental control settings that will lock down multiple devices.

And there were outliers that stood out for how different their endeavor was.

Startup RPH Engineering of Lehi, Utah, whose work with highly durable materials has gone on missions in space, was showing off a product called The Gun Box. CEO and founder Ryan Hyde, a gun owner himself, was prompted to develop the product after deciding to buy a gun to protect his house. He worried about reports of thousands of children injured or killed each year when they find dad's gun and play with it. “This is an alternative for that person who tends to keep his gun under the mattress.”

RPH's biometrically sealed Gun Box gun safe.

The metal box, in sleek race-car style, is sealed with an NFC-based lock that can be opened by swiping with an NFC tag. It springs open fairly quickly, allowing for easy access when one urgently needs to get at one's piece. It costs $249, but there's also a $299 model that contains a biometric thumbprint reader that Hyde claims is even more reliable than the reader on Apple's (AAPL) iPhone 5S. He says it can read your print with your finger in any position, so there's no worry about fumbling.

Hyde, who has young children, tested prototypes by having his kids bang on it with a sledgehammer, proving the durability he says. The fact that it is both sealed and highly stylish will allow people to keep the safe at hand in plain site.

A more expensive model yet, at $475, has all sorts of bells and whistles, literally, such as alarms that go off if it's moved, and a GPS positioning system that can send messages to your smartphone if a perp walks away with the safe. He plans to show the product again next week at the Shot Show, a Las Vegas gun show.

Inside of the Gun Box.

Some booths reminded one of existing technology that still surprises with how beautiful it is. The e-ink folks, the MIT geniuses who make the display technology behind Amazon.com's (AMZN) Kindle e-book reader, had a booth where they showed several watches using the technology. Also on display was Sony's “DPS” e-book reader slate, released in December. At 13.3 inches, the screen is simply beautiful. The reader retails for about $1,000.

Some technology was strictly for manufacturing and you won't ever know about it, you'll only experience it in the next gadget you buy.

Startup Cambrios Technologies of Sunnyvale, California, makes a goop called “ClearOhm,” a reference to electrical impedance, that can be used in the manufacture of touch-capacitive displays, that will reduce thickness of the display by as much as half by removing a whole layer of glass. Chief marketing officer Sriram Peruvemba is a veteran of e-ink.

About Tech Trader Daily

Tech Trader Daily is a blog on technology investing written by Barron’s veteran Tiernan Ray. The blog provides news, analysis and original reporting on events important to investors in software, hardware, the Internet, telecommunications and related fields. Comments and tips can be sent to: techtraderdaily@barrons.com.